Exploring Mars: Are Humans or Robots
Best?
by James Hall, Senior Associate Editor
based on articles written for "Science's Next Wave"
November 27, 2002
First of Two Parts
"Leaning Left"
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"The
planet Mars is where the action will be in the next century." -- Arthur
C. Clarke, 1996.
Other than Earth itself, no planet dominates the imagination of human beings more than Mars. From H. G. Wells' "War of the Worlds", to Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" to last year's "Mars Crossing" by Geoffrey Landis, every generation of writers takes a turn at envisioning life on our nearest interplanetary neighbor.
Soon we will know much more about Mars. As early as 2012, the first astronauts could step out of a lander to explore the Red Planet. Or they may wait another decade or so while a series of robotic devices does the exploring for them.
There's disagreement within NASA, the space agency most likely to initiate or support a mission, about that timetable. An enthusiastic minority at NASA believes that a human mission within this decade can set up a permanent base on Mars and make the important scientific discoveries quickly. But a more conservative majority favors a robotic program that's cheaper, safer, and capable of making significant discoveries -- including finding life on Mars -- without risking human explorers or biological contamination.
Ironically, the recent success of NASA's robotic Mars Odyssey satellite in detecting huge amounts of hydrogen (probably frozen water) just below the surface of Mars' poles has led to increased calls for a human mission to the Red Planet.
Human Exploration, Mars, and Life
For the past four years, a group of scientists, astronauts, and Mars enthusiasts has prepared for that mission at remote Devon Island. Located in the Canadian territory of Nunavit, Devon may be the closest environment to Mars on Earth. At 450 miles north of the Arctic Circle, the eastern portion of the island is covered in ice year round; the western part is mostly polar desert -- cold, arid plains and valleys carved out by ancient glaciers. In the center of the island lies 20-kilometer wide, partially eroded Haughton Crater, a major meteoroid impact that occurred some 23 million years ago.
As the Principal Investigator of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project (HMP), Pascal Lee has investigated the impact geology of the crater and the surrounding area with an emphasis on its similarities to environments on Mars. In 2000 he was joined by Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars Society and originator of the Mars Direct plan for the human exploration of Mars.
Lee, Zubrin, and their colleagues have chosen to focus on the problems of human exploration. They test habitats, spacesuits, communications gear, and procedures like telemedicine that explorers on Mars would need to use.
"Sending humans to Mars is part of the scientific process," said Lee in a recent interview. Once humans go, we will have the infrastructure to continue exploring. That's what happened in the Arctic and the Antarctic."
"The real fascination for Mars has to do with life. That's because we're trying to understand who we are. We don't understand ourselves and hope that by studying life on Mars we can understand more about our place in the universe."
Lee disagrees with the current trend towards exclusively robotic missions to Mars. "Many scientists view short-term research as robotics-only. They spend a thirty-year career competing to get a spacecraft to Mars with a reasonable instrument package. The mission will discover a few things, and another mission will discover something more, but these increments are slow."
"I'm in the mode of gambling, doing everything I can to get a human mission going. But the Haughton-Mars Project justifies that investment. It's worth dedicating a career to a human mission. It may take 20 years, but the lessons learned from it will be greater than any number of robotic missions that we can send."
Bob Zubrin became famous after NASA's failed 1989 proposal to use the International Space Station (ISS) to build a Mars ship in orbit, a program that would have cost $450 billion dollars. Zubrin proposed the Mars Direct program of launches from Earth instead, using existing technology, that could be done for as little as $20-30 billion dollars, the cost of a major Pentagon weapons system. The Johnson Space Center has since calculated that a program similar to Mars Direct that meets current NASA guidelines would cost between $50-60 billion.
Since no money for a human mission has yet to be budgeted by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), or the Russians, Zubrin formed the Mars Society, a private organization that advocates a human mission to Mars within the decade. Zubrin has expanded his Mars Direct idea in two nonfiction books, "Entering Space" and "The Case for Mars", and in a work of fiction, "First Landing". He spent the summer of 2000 at Devon Island comparing the abilities of the human explorers there to a variety of telerobots and wire-guided robots.
"Humans were a thousand times as effective as robots in finding things of scientific interest," Zubrin concludes. "What that suggests is that you send humans where you can, saving the robots to explore the places that humans can't get at." ***
© 2002 James Hall
Pascal Lee is Lead Investigator of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project and a Researcher at NASA Ames Research Center.
Jack Farmer is Chair of the NASA Astrobiology's Institute's Mars Focus Group and Director and Principal Investigator of the Astrobiology Program at Arizona State University.
Robert Zubrin is an aeronautical engineer, President of the Mars Society and of Pioneer Astronautics.
On the Web:
Homepage of the Mars Society, advocacy group for the human exploration of Mars.
COPYRIGHT © 2002 BY THE AMERICAN PARTISAN. All writers retain rights to their work.
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